VISITORS

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “And quit with that! I mean, you sound like a moron!”

  Buffy stared at the creature, remembering Giles’s words about taking in the details for future reference. “You’re not so scary in the light. Still ugly, though.”

  Not a word from the korred. Maybe it couldn’t talk? Or it only speaks what, Cornish? But it was making some sort of humming sound, almost pretty, actually . . .

  Oh. Right. She couldn’t hear it before ’cause it had been directed at Xander and Cordelia. But now it was trying to enchant her. “That is so not on the game plan, pal. All right, Giles. Here goes. And this had better work!”

  She raised her hands to her ears, as though to check that her earrings were still in place, and then, with a quick leap and kick that caught the startled korred square in the stomach, Buffy attacked.

  Ethan, in the shadows, watched for a while out of sheer aesthetic interest, then winced at a particularly solid blow to what, in a human male, would have been extremely bad news, feeling a flash of sympathy for the korred. He gauged which way the fight was going, then gave a silent little sigh of regret. His fifteen pounds were safe.

  I’ve been on the receiving end of those kicks, my odd little magical fellow. You’ll pardon me if I don’t wait around for her to finish with you, and perhaps find me.

  No, if the Slayer were ever to discover that he had been there, even if she believed that he hadn’t had a thing to do with this particular setup . . . It would get ugly. For him, that was. Enough, Ethan decided, was enough. The creature wasn’t worth that. He would annoy Rupert some other time.

  Moving with a catlike grace, and whistling his own tune quite cheerfully, Ethan Rayne left the scene.

  After the first few blows sent it staggering, the korred was almost too stunned to fight back. This wasn’t supposed to happen! The—the mouse didn’t ever turn on the cat!

  More singing, it decided. Stronger. Louder. Even this . . . this no-longer-so-fascinating human female wouldn’t be able to resist. It would see her dance all night, consuming her bright swirls of energy until there was nothing left but a meat shell.

  As it sang, the two other humans huddled on the ground together shivered, twitching, crying out, and the korred grinned.

  But the girl who faced it never even flinched.

  “Come on, ugly!” she taunted. “Afraid of a li’l ole Slayer?”

  Her voice was oddly flat, even for a human, in a way it hadn’t been before. It was as though . . . as though she couldn’t hear herself speaking! She had done something, it realized. Something to her ears, so that sound couldn’t reach her. And if she couldn’t hear herself, she couldn’t hear it! The korred’s snaggle-toothed grin faded as it realized that its song magic was useless.

  But then its lips drew up in a new snarl, this one even uglier than the grin it had been wearing before. It was not so dependent upon magic as this human child would believe. She wanted a fight? Then fight it would!

  Buffy drew back for an instant. Judging from what were probably expressions of dismay and anger crossing that ugly face, the creature must have just realized that she couldn’t hear it.

  Whoops. So much for the element of it-not-knowing.

  Snarling, the korred drew itself up, the look in its little red eyes glazing over, as though it were concentrating. . . .

  “Oh no.”

  Willow had been right. It could change its size. The magic it had been throwing at her must have been redirected into itself, because it grew swiftly to almost twice its original size. Twice the mass, three times as ugly.

  Now looming over her, it licked its lips with a long black tongue, and lunged.

  “Oh no you don’t, ugly!”

  This, Buffy could handle. She was pretty good at hand-to-hand, if she did say so herself. And she hadn’t had any exercise that night, thanks to the scarcity of vampires. But as they grappled, one claw-fisted hand swiped at the side of her head, coming away with a chunk of blond hair—and a wax earplug she had inserted at the beginning of the fight. Crying out in pain, blood running down the side of her face, Buffy disengaged and fell back a few paces, out of its reach.

  Great. Well, that didn’t work, Giles, did it?

  No time to worry about that. She launched herself at the creature again, getting in a few good punches and kicks before the korred could start singing at her again. But it was singing already, kind of: a thin, eerie melody—and the magic in that reedy humming was so strong it made goose bumps rise all over her body.

  “Weird tune,” she said, falling back and panting. “But I gotta tell you, the Dingoes woulda whupped your hide, too.”

  And then the magic reached her, and Buffy felt her limbs start to twitch in the need to move, as though fire was shooting through her veins and making every nerve scream for movement. Like some kind of killer itch that had to be scratched or I will explode . . .

  But Buffy Summers was the Slayer. And that meant that she didn’t go down before anything. Not vampires, not principals, and certainly not some overgrown Chia Pet!

  “All right, ugly, if I have to dance, let’s do it right.”

  West Side Story. She and her mom had rented it one night, one of their weepy popcorn chick-flick fests. That was the way, those gang guys who danced their fights—kick! And punch! Use the music to keep time—whirl and drop, then up in a leaping kick . . .

  Martial arts had come easily to her, the moves Giles drummed into her head becoming instinctive reactions. But before she had been the Slayer, Buffy had been a cheerleader. And before cheerleading, there had been those years at ballet school and ice skating.

  Nothing is ever forgotten. It just hangs around in your memory until one day it’s needed again.

  Okay, so her ballet teacher might never have intended for a grand écart to be used this offensively, but it worked quite nicely.

  The fight moved out into the middle of the street, the korred using sheer brute strength to keep the Slayer from taking it down. It was impressive, the mass of muscle hidden in that misshapen body. But she was unstoppable as well, drawing on its own power—the power of music—to fuel her own assault.

  “Make me miss the Battle of the Bands, will you? Stalk me like some little dateless creep? Try to take on my friends? I so don’t think so.”

  The music faltered, and she got in one good hard kick that sent the korred staggering back against a wall. Another kick snapped its head back. But when she tried to close, to finish it once and for all, those red eyes glowered at her, and those teeth snapped at her arm, forcing her to pull back out of range.

  “Okay. So, we do this the old-fashioned way.”

  Gathering herself, Buffy swayed into the music and made one last, high, side kick that a Rockette would have envied—the heel of her boot catching the korred flat in the throat with a nasty, wet, crushing noise.

  For a long while, neither she nor it moved. Then the korred made one last pitiful noise, grabbed at its destroyed larynx, and ran.

  Buffy dropped into an exhausted crouch and glanced over to where Xander and Cordelia were slowly untangling themselves from each other. She forced a weary grin.

  “Next time,” she suggested, “try to make it to the Bronze. The music’s way better.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Buffy stalked into Sunnydale High School the next morning, past teens on step stools pulling down the Battle of the Bands banners, and on into the library. “I can’t believe it!”

  Giles, a small stack of books clutched in his arms, stared at her in alarm. “What? What went wrong? Did the korred—”

  “Oh, I kicked the korred but good. Nailed the critter right in the throat and stopped that stupid giggle once and for all. You would have been proud of me, Giles. But I can’t believe I missed the entire Battle of the Bands!”

  “Ah. Well. Yes.” Giles reshelved the books one at a time. “One must have one’s priorities, I suppose.”

  “Giles! You don’t understand—Hey! Where is everyone? The place is, like, empty.”
<
br />   Giles looked around. “The student teachers, you mean? The invasion seems to be over. They’re being sent on to the next school in the program.”

  “Awww.” Buffy flopped down at the long table. “No more groupies following you around.”

  “A situation I shall not miss.”

  “Right. Of course.” She waved a hand as the library door opened. “Hey, Will! Giles has lost his admirers.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Giles.”

  That was definitely a “humph” from Giles, who pushed his glasses further up on his nose and turned away, resolutely ignoring them.

  Willow sat down at the table, across from Buffy, looking so determinedly cheerful that Buffy asked, “Didn’t win?”

  “No. The Dingoes’ Ate My Babies came in second.”

  “Hey, that’s still cool! Money prize, too, right?”

  Willow nodded, a real smile showing up. “And Oz said the Dingoes picked up another gig, too, ’cause of some guy hearing them. Which is cool.” Willow blinked. “But what happened last night? I mean, the korred and all?”

  “Oh, not much,” Buffy said, doing the extreme nonchalant. “Went stalking the korred, korred found Xander and Cordy instead. Plan failed—and we have got to talk about that Giles, ’cause I lost my best earring—and I did what I do. Which was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.”

  “Yeah, that’s about right,” Xander said from the doorway, and followed that with an enormous yawn and a stretch. “That dancercize class last night was a killer.”

  “It was terrible,” Cordelia added, slipping past Xander to join Buffy and Willow at the table. “I mean, my makeup was smearing. And my hair was—I’m so glad no one saw me. Except you, of course, Buffy. But thankfully you don’t count.”

  “Gee, Cordy,” Buffy commented, “you always know exactly what to say.”

  “But . . . the korred,” Willow said. “What about it? Where is it?”

  “Good point, Will. Giles, I didn’t actually kill the korred. Is it gonna come back?”

  Giles turned around, taking his glasses off and tapping them against his lips thoughtfully. “Well. Although you did not kill the korred, you did effectively silence it. If your guess is correct, it has fled from the vicinity of the Hellmouth.” He gestured with his folded glasses, deep into Giles Lecture Mode. “An injured earth being such as the korred will rush off from the site of its wounding and return to earth.”

  “Meaning,” Willow translated, “that it won’t stop running till it hits a mountain and burrows back in.”

  “Exactly.”

  “OK, now what?” Xander asked.

  “Now,” said a familiar, faintly accented voice, “I must congratulate you.”

  Giles stiffened. “Panner. You’re up early.”

  “Not particularly. There seems to be very little time to sleep in Sunnydale. So much going on.” Panner gave them such an elegant bow that Buffy stared and Cordelia straightened up. “But I am afraid that my work here, as the saying goes, is done.”

  Giles wasn’t impressed. “Is it?”

  “My dear Rupert, there is no need to bristle at me! I told you that I was not here to impede your work. Merely to record it.”

  “Oh,” Cordelia said suddenly. “A Watcher’s Watcher.”

  Buffy turned to glare at her, since Giles was busy glaring at Panner.

  “And . . . ?” Giles prodded.

  “And what I have seen here is quite the effective team. A bit . . . eccentric in its operation, perhaps, but effective.”

  “And . . . ?” Giles continued to prod. “What else?”

  Panner smiled. Actually, truly smiled. And his face didn’t crack. Buffy took a minute to marvel at that.

  “Ah, Rupert, you always had a rather distressing tendency toward paranoia. But yes, there was more to this visit. You, my dear,” he added, dipping his head to Willow, who promptly reddened. “I was intrigued by stories I had heard of the Slayerettes. Most specifically, of a young woman who just might have the intellect and aptitude to be recruited.”

  “Recruited . . . ?” Willow’s voice was barely audible. “As a . . . Watcher? Oh no, you’ve made a mistake, a big mistake, I mean I’m not—”

  “Precisely what I decided. You are a bright young woman, young lady, with a great deal of potential, but not quite ready for the rigors of being a Watcher.”

  “And maybe I don’t want to be a Watcher!” Willow retorted, then reddened still further, looking at Giles. “I mean, I don’t know, I . . .”

  “No matter.” Panner’s voice was almost light. “Rupert, I must say that it was a pleasure seeing you again—and learning for myself how well you and your Slayer are doing your jobs. And now I fear that I must say good-bye.”

  “Have a safe journey.”

  Judging from the expression on Giles’s face, that was far from what he’d wanted to say. Panner hesitated a moment, then clearly changed his mind. With a second bow, the older man turned and left.

  It wasn’t that the air suddenly got cleaner or anything, but everyone breathed a little better when the door closed behind him.

  Then everyone turned to stare at Willow.

  “Uh, the korred,” Willow said hastily, before anyone could say anything to her. “What happens to it now? I mean, once it goes to earth? Does it heal?”

  Giles sat down beside her, a scholar’s enthusiasm back in his eyes. “That is an interesting question. One historian proposed that when such a creature is wounded . . .”

  Buffy rolled her eyes, and tuned out with the ease of long practice. Bad guy was defeated, blah blah blah, no need to learn more. That’s what Slayers had Watchers for, to do the Knowing Stuff thing.

  Judging from their dazed expressions, Xander and Cordelia had lost the gist of Giles’s ramble already. Only Willow appeared really interested. Buffy sighed. This could go on for some time.

  Time! Right! Buffy jumped up. “I hate to break up this meeting of the Mythology Debating Club, but some of us really need to get to class.”

  “Hey, class,” Xander echoed. “Right. Good idea. I can get some quality sleep there. Only joking!” he added when Giles frowned.

  “‘Do you want fries with that?’” Willow asked, then put on her best innocent expression when Xander looked sideways at her.

  “Ah. Well.” Giles put his glasses back on and stood up. “To quote the Bard: All’s well that ends well.”

  “Well?” Cordelia asked, standing up. “For your information, I broke the heel of my best boots last night! That’s not ‘well.’”

  Smiling faintly, Rupert Giles watched his Slayer and her Slayerettes file out of the library, chattering together. Almost like normal teenagers. When they were gone, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Another monster had been defeated. All the visitors have left. Panner was gone. No further word from Ethan. The student teachers, that ridiculous Librarian Posse, had ended their stay at Sunnydale High School. The library was his again.

  Exuding satisfaction, he returned to reshelving the pile of books. Then he stopped, frowning. Wasn’t there another one in this pile?

  Sitting in class, Willow opened her notebook, and scrunched down in her chair. And then she reached back into her knapsack and pulled out a small leather-bound book. Hiding it within the larger notebook, she flipped open to a page and happily began reading Giles’s journal.

  It is a library, isn’t it?And one is supposed to check stuff out, and learn from it, right?

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Laura Anne Gilman’s short fiction has appeared in the magazines Amazing Stories and Dreams of Decadence, and the anthologies Urban Nightmares, Lammas Night, and Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction. The co-author of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Visitors with Josepha Sherman, she also co-edited the anthologies OtherWere: Stories of Transformation, and the forthcoming Treachery & Treason. She lives in northern New Jersey with her husband, Peter, and cat, Pandora (who was the inspiration for Deep Water’s “Ariel”), and can be reached on the web a
t www.sff.net/people/lauraanne.gilman.

  Josepha Sherman is a fantasy writer and folklorist whose books include the Highlander novel The Captive Soul; the Xena book Xena: All I Need to Know I Learned from the Warrior Princess, by Gabriell, as Translated by Josepha Sherman; and the folklore volume Merlin’s Kin: World Tales of the Hero Magician. She is a member of the Author’s Guild, SFWA, and the American Folklore Society. She is probably the first folklorist to give a paper on the changing role of the Klingon at the American Folklore Society. It goes without saying that she is a fan of Buffy! She can be reached at www.sff.net/people/Josepha.Sherman.

  Stake out the Buffy the Vampire SlayerTM fan club at

  On the outskirts of Sunnydale, recent rains have uncovered the remains of a five hundred-year-old Spanish expedition. But one of the artifacts, a smoky mirror with an ornately carved obsidian frame, goes missing, along with the history teacher who found it. And when Buffy narrowly escapes the attack of a black jaguar while on patrol, Giles puts the gang into research mode.

  An ancient volume identifies the missing mirror as a magical object formed by the Aztec god of darkness. A mortal who looks into the mirror will see his or her fate—and can be manipulated by the evil god, who is scheming to regain his power. Taking their destinies into their own hands, the Slayer and her friends rush into a ferocious battle between light and darkness in the shadows of a massive Aztec temple, a battle against perpetual night—and the evil that thrives in the dark hours.

  Obsidian Fate

  By Diana G. Gallagher

  Published by Pocket Books